Even with knowledge of modern pleasure traps and how they destroy our brains and our lives, I’ve been succumbing to a powerful one over the past couple months, which is specifically short videos (TikTok, YouTube shorts, etc), but also other screen activities such as watching TV series (which are fucking horrible nowadays almost without exception), and playing online poker.
One of my intentions this moon cycle was to avoid all of these screen activities completely as one of my typical experiments, and I’ve learned a lot already just a few days in.
Many times throughout the day the urge would hit to pull out my phone and just rot my brain for a few minutes. It’s identical to the urge to smoke a cigarette, or any addictive pull.
I clearly recognize these impulses as my brain’s desire for reward chemicals. But since I haven’t indulged, but my brain was still craving those rewards, I have found other ways to satisfy the urge which are much more creative and productive.
Instead of screens, I’ve been reading books and also just writing little short stories. Those activities are more labor intensive than just passively watching a screen, but they are far superior in all ways, including the feeling of satisfaction once completed versus the drug-like hangover post-scrolling.
I’ve channeled those impulsive urges for stimulation into something that’s productive, and even just a couple days in, I’ve adapted quite a bit to this new way of life. I still feel the urges, but I have found new outlets for them.
It has shown me clearly, from experience, what a harmful practice scrolling is. It saps your creative energy and results in being a mindless consumer versus being a creator, the latter being our natural state.
When we are creating something, whatever it is – using our imagination and creative spirit to bring something new into existence – we feel true fulfillment. Like a real sense of, “Ah, this is what life is really about.” It may feel tedious or difficult while in the act, but there is something deeper there, and especially the feeling of finishing a new creation, well that’s a feeling no drug can replicate.
When we are consuming, it might feel good in the moment, but it feels bad after. We are sapped of energy, and/or of something difficult to describe…maybe “life force” is a good term for what we lose in the process.
As an example, especially in the evening after dinner, I used to plop on the couch and just watch some YouTube or TikTok on my phone. It’s strange because it seems relaxing, it feels relaxing, but at the same time it’s overly stimulating for the human brain. In particular, very short videos like TikTok and Reels etc jump all over the place with topics, and it’s overloading the brain. You’re not focusing on any one thing for more than a few seconds or a minute. Bam bam bam. So when you go to work or to school and try to focus on one thing that’s far less stimulating, it becomes a lot more difficult. You’ve trained your brain to hop around to different highly stimulating subjects.
And look at how all the social media platforms have evolved. Most of the content now is videos, and even YouTube, the original platform for long-form videos, is now putting more of an emphasis on their Shorts, dumping a lot of them in your home page feed. In fact, YouTube channels can’t grow quickly without uploading a lot of shorts anymore. All of the platforms are encouraging this kind of content and consumption. That’s because it’s very addictive and keeps people on the platforms for more time, and your attention and energy are what these platforms monetize.
We’re talking about your human life force here. It’s being expended consuming rapidfire content instead of being used to create.
Give it a shot, see what you notice. See all of the posts I’ve published here recently? As to whether or not they’re good, well that’s up to you to determine, it’s very subjective, and in the pursuit of personal fulfillment for me, it’s not all that important. This collection of writings is just a small fraction of what I’ve actually written in the time since I’ve been avoiding screens. My experiment was only intended for one moon cycle, but it’s clear to me that this is simply a vastly superior way to live life, and that my productive output after a year, or many years of avoiding screen entertainment will be exponentially higher. And the productivity is effortless. It’s not a burden, nor does it feel like “work”. It’s just how I get my stimulation now, and simply put, it feels much better.
Instead of watching TV for a few hours before bed, try just sitting there doing nothing. See what screen-free activities pop into your mind, notice the impulses that arise. Maybe you’ll want to read a book, call a friend, clean the house, play a game, or *gasp* just sit quietly for a while.
Update: Less than two weeks after writing the above, I went back to my screen addiction for a week. It is literally like a drug addiction, how it feels, and the harm to the brain and mind that it causes. So I think it takes constant awareness and discipline.
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